


Falling Through Ice

by Disloyal_Order_Of_Water_Buffaloes



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [2]
Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Drowning, M/M, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Nuclear War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-03-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:34:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23289340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Disloyal_Order_Of_Water_Buffaloes/pseuds/Disloyal_Order_Of_Water_Buffaloes
Summary: Nuclear war hits and two husbands just try to make it in this post-apocalyptic world.
Relationships: Spot Conlon/Racetrack Higgins
Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1666384
Comments: 8
Kudos: 19
Collections: Bad Things Happen Bingo





	Falling Through Ice

When the world goes to shit, you protect the love of your life. That was a fact.

That was exactly what Spot Conlon and Racetrack Higgins were doing.

No one predicts nuclear bombs hitting multiple cities so quickly.

They just needed to survive, was all. They didn’t ask for much else. 

The fact that it had already been autumn when the bombs hit didn’t help either. It thrust them into winter even quicker than what was normal. Which sucked because Spot was never a fan of the cold anyway.

“You hanging in there?” Racer huffed through the cold to his husband.

“Just freezing my ass off.”

The taller snickered and shoved his hands into his coat pockets again. “We just gotta find somewhere we can hunker down for a bit,” he murmured. “Somewhere with sturdy walls.”

“Dunno if there’re any left,” Spot scoffed. “Damn bombs kinda do that to buildings.”

“I’m just hoping we’re far enough out of the city that we’ll find a building with  _ some _ structural integrity.”

“Yeah, well with our luck, it ain’t happening.”

Race rolled his eyes. “Do you  _ always _ have to be so pessimistic?”

“Did you seriously just ask me that?” Spot shook his head. “We barely made it outta the city before we got either killed by a collapsing building or fucking  _ murdered _ , are probably gonna get whatever form of cancer radiation causes, my left arm is burnt to shit, and you’re asking  _ me _ why I’m pessimistic?”

“Does radiation actually give you cancer?”

“I don’t know, Anthony, I’m not a fucking doctor. Is that really what you’re taking away from that?”

Race bit the inside of his cheek. “Yeah, sorry,” he hummed and spun the wedding band on his finger. His hands were cold since he’d given his pair of gloves to Spot, but he didn’t mind. He had a thicker coat with better pockets. “This sucks ass.”

Spot glanced over, realizing he couldn’t stay mad at his husband for too long. Could you blame him for trying to be relatively optimistic while walking next to a fatalistic asshole? He watched Race as they walked, taking in whatever he could.

That’d been a habit of Spot’s lately: looking at Race as if this was the last time they’d see each other. There was always the potential it  _ would _ be the last time.

His beanie was pulled tight over his head under the hood of the sweatshirt he had on under his jacket. Somehow, his blond curls still peeked out from under it. The clothes on him looked too big--probably because they were barely scraping by on the food front right now. Spot knew that basically all crops that had been grown or were growing around them were impossible to eat, which meant lately they were shotgunning cans of soup and eating cans of peaches with their fingers (which, as Race pointed out, were probably full of radiation and shit. But what could they do? Waste the bottled water they had? Dip their hands in the iced over river that was  _ also _ filled with radiation? Spot said to worry about that latter and focus on not starving right now). He wanted to give Race all of the food and just eat enough to scrape by, but they were both already doing that. Everything happened so fast that while Race was worried about fist fighting a woman for medical supplies Sean had to get the food with his one good arm.

It had gotten better since then, sure, but thermal burns  _ hurt _ . He wasn’t able to grab much at first.

His arm was bandaged up, by the way. Tony didn’t let them go anywhere significant until Spot allowed him to at least wrap it so he wasn’t burned then getting hypothermia.

“‘M sorry about all this,” Spot said softly, hooking his arm around Race’s and leaning his head on his shoulder. Spot had to reach a little, but that was okay.

“You say that like you caused this.”

“I mean, I didn’t. But I still feel bad you’re going through all this.”

“Spotty, it’s  _ fine _ . We’re together. That’s what matters, okay? As long as we’re together, we’re okay.”

“Okay,” he said softly. “Ah, shit,” Spot sighed as they stopped abruptly.

“That’s a piece of water,” Race said obviously.

“Yeah, it is. Doesn’t look like there’s a way around it anywhere close,” Spot murmured. “You think it’s frozen over enough to walk on?”

“I’m sure. It’s colder than a witches tit out here.”

“Alright, rock paper scissors for who goes across first?”

Tony nodded, appreciating that they were still using that. It was always a big debate on who went first on this kind of stuff. Was the ice more likely to crack on the first person or second? They both always wanted to be the one to fall, not the other.

And Spot easily won their little game, meaning he went first. He assumed that the ice would crack on the first person rather than the second. He didn’t want Race to get soaked and freeze to death. At least Spot was already injured which, in his mind, made it more acceptable for him to get hurt. 

And luckily the ice didn’t give as he carefully trapsed across it. It was a good length--maybe about twenty feet across. God-knows how deep. When Spot looked down he could see the little bit of unfrozen water just below moving out of the way of his gentle steps, which was concerning but since it hadn’t broken he deemed it safe for his husband.

“You worry too much,” Race scolded before tentatively stepping onto the ice. His brain was telling him he was more likely to crack it--even though that wasn’t true. He was taller than Spot, sure, but he was a string bean even  _ before _ all of their food sources got destroyed. 

But he stepped slowly and methodically, about seven feet across when he heard a  _ crack _ . 

“Tony,” Spot hissed, as if the ice could hear him. “Tony, get over here.”

“I’m trying,” he murmured, attempting to find a good spot to step next. When he found one that looked to be the best option, he stepped forward.

And unfortunately Spot watched the ice under him crumble and watched Race go with it.

He couldn’t control the yell that came out of him, trying to figure out if he would be able to help or get sucked under as well if he walked out onto the ice. 

Apparently they were wrong and it hadn’t been cold enough to freeze through enough to walk on.

That was one of the thoughts that went through Racer’s head as he fell.

The next was  _ holy shit that’s cold _ .

A simple observation.

The river was far deeper than he thought it’d be, unfortunately for him. He was thinking that if it was shallow enough, he’d be able to easily hit the bottom, push back up, and worry about freezing to death  _ after _ he escaped. That wasn’t the case.

The cold water surrounding him made him involuntarily gasp, which was the  _ worst _ thing he could think of doing while falling into water. But he didn’t have a choice.

Race tried to cough up everything he’d just swallowed but couldn’t-- it just kept coming.

He couldn’t hear Spot on the surface sprinting over to try to find him. All Race could do was think  _ I need out _ and try to get to the surface.

But he had no idea where he was. It was dark and  _ freezing _ and he couldn’t figure it out until he finally hit his head on something hard. He almost wished it had knocked him out.

Race wanted to call out for Spot, and he tried. It only let more water in, though. He remembered hearing something in his childhood swimming classes.  _ Stay calm. Panicking only makes it worse _ .

He tried to think of Spot, their wedding, how they’d wanted to foster some kids soon before everything went to hell. 

But it didn’t work. He hadn’t known how long he’d been choking on the water, nauseous and gagging but only bringing in more water by the mouthful. How long had he been choking? His jacket was really obnoxious, too, he realized. It felt like it was only suffocating him more.

The answer had been about thirty seconds. That was the amount of time it took Spot to get to the hole in the ice and try to locate Race. It took another fifteen seconds of sticking his arm into the freezing water to latch onto his husband’s jacket and ended up hitting his head a few times before dragging him out of the water.

“ _ No no no _ ,” Spot hissed as he looked at how  _ blue _ Race’s lips were. They were almost purple. And his skin was… wrong. He wasn’t sure how to describe his weirdly pale skin other than  _ wrong _ .

“Anthony Higgins, you better wake up  _ right _ now,” Spot huffed, opening Race’s mouth and starting chest compressions. That was the right thing to do, right?

He even tried rescue breaths, even though he wasn’t sure it would work since Race’s lungs were still full of water. But after a few tries Race sputtered and a little water dribbled out of his mouth.

“C’mon, babe, I know you got more than that,” Spot huffed and continued chest compressions. “Tony,  _ please _ ,” he begged quietly as time went on, minutes went by, and he was pretty sure that even if he got the water out of his husband’s body, there was no way he’d wake up.


End file.
